I've been talking to various people recently about my last entry, the " Virtualization Adoption Lifecycle". 

I'd like to differentiate my framework a little bit from the various operational readiness / process maturity models out there.  The framework I proposed is about strategy: in other words, how embedded is virtualization into an organization's overall IT strategy.  It affects the way design decisions, infrastructure choices, cost models, and chargeback frameworks are made.  For example, an organization that chooses to use "transient VMs" over the traditional server model is making a strategic decision independent of processes.

There is a whole other body of knowledge out there about process optimization.  One of the more common frameworks is the one from Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute - the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) - the "I" has been added rather recently.  It, and others like it, look at an organization's maturity in a series of levels, from the worst (chaotic) to the best (optimized - with repeatable processes and a mature operational framework).  VMware's services organization has built an Operational Readiness practice to apply those principles to virtualization, and several Systems Integrators are building similar practices.

If you're really interested in the subject of process optimization, read The Goal.  It's a textbook (poorly) disguised as a novel, and is required reading for any Industrial Engineering student.

So, don't view my lifecycle as a way to optimize processes around virtualization.  It's a way to look at how strategic virtualization is to IT as a whole.